


how it tangles

by luminarai



Category: The Get Down (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Future Fic, Grief/Mourning, Healthy Relationships, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 21:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10727388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luminarai/pseuds/luminarai
Summary: He’s been looking tired lately too, his Thor, a certain kind of flint in his seagreen eyes.Thor’s lips curl into a smile and Dizzee is struck once again by this beautiful man he gets to call his. “Hey yourself,” Thor says, beckoning him into the kitchen. “What’ve you got there?”Oh, Dizzee thinks. Somehow he hadn’t gotten around to considering how to explain the cat currently blinking awake in his arms. Awkward.





	how it tangles

**Author's Note:**

> this is set in the mid-late 80s. the minor character death is an original character so please don't worry! I love these characters too much to hurt them like that.
> 
> I've been working at this as a kind of processing my own loss of a loved one, so. I hope you like it.
> 
> title is from the rumi poem 'look at love'.

Dizzee squints up against the gray sky the same second a fat raindrop hits his forehead. He picks up his pace and tugs his bag closer. It’s heavy from the weight of cans of paint that clink gently together when he walks. The air in the city has been thick and humid with the threat of a storm for days now and Dizzee wonders if it isn’t going to start any minute now.

He barely gets to think the thought through before the skies open up. Dizzee curses and ducks into the mouth of an alley to hide under the overhang of a staircase. He can hear the shouts of people who get caught in the sudden downpour, the running slaps of shoes against the wet pavement.

Well, at least he didn’t have any other appointments today, Dizzee thinks. He could be stuck here for a while; the rain is coming down so hard it almost looks like solid poles of water. It’s the kind of rainstorm that can only arrive suddenly just to slither away gently, leaving the world wet and fresh.

Instead, he leans against the dusty brick wall behind him, feeling the tiredness in his limbs. Sleep hasn’t come easy the last few weeks for him and Thor. Even after the heart stopping relief of getting two clean bills of health from the doctor’s office, nights had been long and uneasy lately. They huddle close together at night, the knowledge that they are among the lucky ones heavy in the darkness. It seems like people are fading around them faster than falling stars. Most mornings, Dizzee barely dares let go of the body next to his.

Around him the alley is lined with dumpsters and odd piles of junk. The sound of rain bouncing of a multitude of surfaces creates its own strange symphony. The smell isn’t great but Dizzee’s been chased through enough alleyways in his life to not mind it too much. There’s a few layers of tags on the walls, some older ghosts lingering as well. Nobody special, but the spark of color on the brick is enough to tug at Dizzee’s lips.

He’s got a large canvas waiting for him at home, alluringly blank. He’s been working on a concept for days, his current sketchbook filling up with stretches of ink.

Dizzee’s letting his mind wander with the image of wings, how to put their rustle into paint, when there’s a small sound from a pile of old cardboard boxes a few feet from him. At first he doesn’t notice, caught up in the sounds of rain and his own thoughts, but then it gets a little louder. An insistent little yelp.

Dizzee startles and turns his head. The pile has gone quiet again. Cautiously, he steps nearer and looks over the cardboard which is slowly darkening from splatters of rain. The little sound of complaint comes again, lower, and Dizzee squats down, peering into the space between the boxes.

A pair of mismatched eyes stare back at him.

“Oh, hello,” says Dizzee to the most miserable-looking cat he’s ever seen. It meows plaintively at him again, though it can barely be described as a meow. It’s more of a garbled sound, like nobody ever bothered to teach it how to sound like a proper cat.

“Yeah, you’re probably not too happy about this weather either, huh?” he asks it.

It just stares back at him with pitiful eyes. The Egyptians used to worship these creatures as gods but this one hardly seems it could have received a single prayer, Dizzee thinks. The cat blinks slowly, breaking their small staring contest. The sound it makes now is more a low _brap_.

Cautiously, Dizzee holds a hand out, not too close. The cat looks at it for a second, ears flicking, and Dizzee is ready to snatch his fingers back at the barest hint of a claw.

But then it stretches out and butts its head against his palm. Its small body is covered in a grey, matted coat and it looks like the tip of its tail is missing. It’s barely more than a kitten.

Listen, Dizzee never claimed to be made of stone – the opposite really; he sees life and heart in most things, in the space of an empty canvas, in wrinkled sheets in the morning light, in the smell of his mother’s cooking. And this is an actual living thing. One that trusts him to carefully pet it between its ears and smooth his hand over its thin body. Dizzee’s heart melts.

Maybe the Egyptians would have considered this a sign from the gods, he thinks.

He carefully sits down on the damp ground, avoiding the small canals the rainwater has created over the uneven asphalt. The cat seems pleased with this development and climbs onto his legs. Its small body is purring like a machine, vibrating against Dizzee’s palms. It’s fascinating, really. They never had any pets while growing up, his mother proclaiming that their home was enough of a zoo as is. Besides Ra-Ra was allergic to all things furry.

Sure, there had been cats living in the alleys everywhere, yowling on the rooftops at night, but Dizzee remembers those as ferocious beasts, weatherworn and sharp-clawed and entirely untrusting of any humans.

This little guy looks like he shouldn’t be trusting any humans either if his tail is any indication. But instead of taking a swipe at him, the cat kneads its small paws into Dizzee’s jeans. And more importantly, into the rips in the denim, ouch.

“Those are kinda sharp, little one,” he winces, carefully nudging the cat away from his knees. It crowds into his lap instead, rubbing itself against his stomach. It leaves hair all over his shirt which for once isn’t a paint-stained one – it’s actually a very nice shirt, one that Thor bought for him. Dizzee often wears it when they go out. But he can’t actually bring himself to mind.

He isn’t sure how long he sits on the ground with the small creature winding and twisting around him but at some point the rain eases up into a gentle drizzle. Then it stops. Droplets of leftover water drip from the edges of the staircase above him. Dizzee cranes his neck towards the sky; it’s still dark and cloudy, like it’s just daring him to leave the little hideaway only to pelt him the second he steps out.

But he doesn’t actually want to spend the rest of his day waiting in a smelly alleyway. Dizzee pauses and looks down at the cat. It has settled into a comfortable ball on his lap, apparently dozing while he pets it. Its tongue is actually sticking out a little, a little touch of pink.

It takes less than a second to make a decision.

Dizzee carefully eases off his worn denim jacket and wraps it around the cat as he stands up. It makes a small, confused noise and blinks its odd eyes at him but relaxes when he puts it against his chest.

And, yeah. Dizzee’s heart? Gone. Stolen. Shot into outer space.

He makes his way home with a wary eye on the sky but it remains dry. People are starting to venture out, but the sidewalks are pretty clear and it takes less time than usual before Dizzee’s shouldering open the door to his apartment building. He digs out his key with one hand while cradling the cat with his other and makes his way to the fifth floor.

When he closes his front door he breathes out, weirdly relieved that the small animal is still chilling in his jacket.

The apartment he shares with Thor is small but – nice. There’s only one bedroom and the kitchen is tiny but they’ve got a living room with space for guests and a small balcony facing the sunrise. There’s an unsurprising amount of art on the walls – very little of his or Thor’s own though; like any artist they prefer not to stare at their work too much and it only gets a place if the other insists. Most of their art supplies are in the studio downtown so it’s fairly orderly, considering neither he nor Thor are the tidiest of people.

Most importantly, it feels like home.

Thor’s in the kitchen, sitting at their small table. Dizzee takes a moment to admire the slope of his shoulders in the tank top he’s wearing, the stretch of his neck which is for once unveiled by the way he’s twisted his hair into a small knot at the top of his head. If Dizzee strains his eyes he can maybe see the hint of purple underneath the shadow of Thor’s ear, left there in the shape of Dizzee’s mouth.

The feeling that spreads in his chest is the same as when they were teenagers, a warm swell and a sting of electricity. The part of him he will always know as Rumi sings in his blood.

Yeah, this is what home feels like.

“Hey,” he says softly. Thor startles from where he was staring at the spread of paper in front of him, turns and relaxes at the sight of Dizzee leaning in the doorway.

He’s been looking tired lately too, his Thor, a certain kind of flint in his seagreen eyes, a smudge of shadow under them. The edges of his smile has been subdued. They lost Jamie last week; he’d been a friend of Thor’s first, from back when Thor and Rumi had just been tags on train cars, and had become Dizzee’s friend by extension.

He’d been twenty-six. His parents hadn’t showed at the funeral.

They’d hung his photograph in the studio with the others.

Thor’s lips curl into a smile and Dizzee is struck once again by this beautiful man he gets to call his. “Hey yourself,” Thor says, beckoning him into the kitchen. “What’ve you got there?”

Oh, Dizzee thinks. Somehow he hadn’t gotten around to considering how to explain the cat currently blinking awake in his arms. Awkward.

“Uh,” says Dizzee. He was never the one who had to think quickly on his feet, who knew how to bargain and convince in logical sequences. He’d always had his younger brothers for that. Dizzee’s mind was always moving a bit too far out of reach to make structured arguments. Instead he shoves the bundle at Thor who catches it by reflex.

The cat pokes its head out to stare at Thor who stares back. “Dizz,” he says slowly, “why do you have a cat in your jacket?”

Dizzee pulls milk out of the fridge and finds a mug that isn’t full of paint water to pour it in. “We just crossed paths,” he says helplessly, setting the mug down on the floor. “Or maybe I just fell into his. And he’s so small and part of his tail is missing and he just got right on my lap. He – she? Maybe? I don’t know.”

In Thor’s arms the cat squirms, impatient to get away – Dizzee can’t relate – and Thor lets is step onto the round tabletop. It immediately plants its ass down to survey its new surroundings. It looks at Dizzee and does the not-quite-a-meow.

A surprised laugh bursts out of Thor. “Did – did that cat just _bark_?”

The cat apparently decides that it’s had enough of the both of them and takes a particularly ungraceful leap onto the narrow kitchen counter.

“Oh god, Dizzee, is it drunk?” Thor splutters, laughing. As if disagreeing, the cat makes another bark-meow which only serves to make Thor dissolve into actual giggles.

“He’s special,” Dizzee says and plops down on the other kitchen chair, charmed beyond words by the both of them, unable to tear his eyes away from the delighted curve of Thor’s mouth. He can’t disagree with him, though; it does sound like the cat heard a human mimicking a dog and tried to imitate it. It sounds more like a small yell than anything animal-like, really.

Thor rests his chin on his hand, his lips still twitching in a smile. “I guess he recognized you as a kindred spirit,” he chuckles without a hint of sarcasm.

“I’ve never had a cat,” Dizzee confesses. “I don’t actually know what to do with one.”

“Me neither. My mother would never have allowed animals in the house, it would have ruined the furniture.” Thor’s voice takes on that pointed tone that it gets whenever he talks about his parents. Dizzee reaches out and takes the hand Thor has lying on the tabletop, twining their fingers together.

The cat has apparently noticed the mug of milk and is bowed over the cup in seconds, greedily lapping it up.

“My mom just said we were enough like a zoo already,” he offers and it makes the mild smile return to Thor’s face as he watches the cat try to stuff its entire head into the mug. “I’ve always thought Ra-Ra was a bit of a meerkat.”

“Yolanda’s a lioness,” Thor offers.

“Naturally,” Dizzee says, “and Boo Boo is a capuchin.”

“What does that make you then?” Thor asks.

“Obviously,” Dizzee says, bringing Thor’s hand to his mouth and pressing a kiss to those clever fingers, “we’re birds of a feather.”

“Smooth-talker,” Thor says but his eyes are terribly tender. Dizzee kisses a paint-speckled knuckle. For a long moment, Dizzee drinks in the way the light dances in his boyfriend’s eyes, making Dizzee spark and glimmer in turn.

The moment is broken by a muffled yowl from the floor. Dizzee looks over to find that the cat has succeeded in stuffing its whole head in the coffee cup and then succeeded in getting stuck. As it is there’s a panicked small cat body waving a mug head around on their kitchen floor.

“Special is the word,” Thor decides as they pull the ceramic of the milk-soaked animal. “Do you think you can bathe a cat? This one seriously needs a wash.”

As it turns out, you can bathe a cat. Dizzee watches warily as Thor fills a bowl with lukewarm water and a bit of soap. He’s pretty attached to all of Thor’s limbs and prefer them to be free of sharp claws and teeth. But the cat, living up to its quickly building reputation as a complete weirdo, placidly lets Thor gently wash it with a cloth.

But then, Dizzee thinks with a dry mouth, watching the muscles in Thor’s forearms flex, the golden hair on them catching the light, even a cat should realize that this isn’t an opportunity you turn down. Dizzee knows from experience just how warm and generous those broad hands feel.

Thor catches him staring. Dizzee doesn’t even try to hide it, just shrugs.

“Really?” Thor says.

“I can’t help that I’ve got the most beautiful man in New York in my kitchen,” Dizzee says mildly, relishing the flush that spreads over Thor’s nose.

People say that the teenage adoration fades over time. Maybe that means they’re doing the whole love thing wrong but Dizzee can’t say he minds.

As Thor carefully works the cat dry with a clean kitchen towel, the fur under the coating of dirt and dust reveals itself to be plush white.

“Would you look at that,” Thor says admiringly, scratching it behind its ears. “Aren’t you a handsome – girl? Yeah, looks like you’re a girl. Oh, there you go.”

The cat has decided she’s had enough of the two of them and flops off the counter, disappearing into the living room to explore. Thor wipes his hands. “Maybe we should put down a newspaper or something,” he says. “Or like, at least put away all the breakable things away.”

He’s furrowing his brow, pursing his lips ever so slightly. He looks worried but – somehow he looks lighter. Like the weight on his shoulders have eased just for a moment.

Dizzee steps forward to crowd him against the counter. There’s barely enough space for the two of them to move past each other in the kitchen in the first place so he presses in tight, his hands finding a familiar home on the jut of Thor’s hips. Thor shifts to fit his body into Dizzee’s in the way that makes Dizzee think the ancient Greeks had been onto something with their theory soulmates as one being split into two.

Thor’s lips are raw and chapped from anxiously worrying at them with his teeth. It used to be a habit that only emerged whenever he had to go visit his parents but these days he bites them bloody seemingly every second day.

Dizzee brushes a careful kiss against them, draws the red lower lip in between his own. Thor relaxes against him. His hands travel up Dizzee’s arms to settle in the hair at his hair. Instinctively, his fingers find a curl and soothingly starts twisting like he’s done countless times before.

“Sometimes I miss the ‘fro,” he teases and tugs gently at the shorter curls that Dizzee sports now. He gets a playful nip to the lip for it as they both know what he’s referring to. This summer, Thor had cut his hair to fall just under his ears. “It’s a protest,” he’d told a stricken Dizzee. “Everybody keeps asking if I’m into glam metal and I refuse to be a party to it.” Dizzee had mourned its loss like a loved one.

Maybe it had been a bit too much when he’d pretended not to recognize an exasperated Thor for almost a week straight but he had been trying to drive home a point.

(Eventually, he’d had to admit that it actually looked pretty good, especially when Thor combed it back but a few rebellious locks fell into his face. Very roguish. But then, Thor could probably dye his hair blue and wear a bucket as a hat and still look great, so.)

“The top hat kept falling off, it had to go,” Dizzee chirps and revels in the way he can feel Thor’s little chuckle against his chest.

“You’re lucky I love you, with an attitude like that,” Thor says, pressing smiling lips against the little mole under Dizzee’s eye.

 _I am_ , Dizzee thinks but doesn’t say. He kisses Thor again, feels the little splash of stars inside his chest.

He’s got a thumb rubbing the sensitive skin over Thor’s hip when a ceramic-sounding crash makes them pull apart. They look bewildered at each other for a moment before Dizzee remembers; “The cat,” he sighs.

“Told you we should have put the breakable things away,” Thor mutters and untangles himself from his boyfriend. “If we’re keeping her, we should at least lock up our cups and stuff so she can’t get to them.” He heads into the living room.

“You can’t tame a wild heart,” Dizzee calls after him, dramatically.

Thor sticks his head back into the kitchen, stray locks falling out of his bun to frame his face. “Oh, I would never dream of it,” he says with a smile far too tender to be talking about a cat. Dizzee’s knees go a little weak.

He pushes away from the counter to get the dustpan and brush from a cupboard. From the living room, he can hear Thor talking to the cat and getting a purr-like bark in response. The slight patter of rain starts tapping against the outside of the kitchen window again. Thor’s laughter rings through the little apartment.

Nancy who runs their preferred art supply store has two cats, Dizzee knows. He decides to call her.

 

 

\---

 

 

The rain has turned into a thick almost-sludge by the time Dizzee reaches the studio. His coat has taken the brunt of it and he drops it with a graceless splat in the front of the show room. They’re closed for today anyway, and Mags, the girl who helps them out on busy days, isn’t here to chide him about it.

He carries the plastic bags to the workroom at the back. There’s a familiar song playing on the stereo and Dizzee breathes in the familiar smell of paint and canvas. There are stacks of artworks in varying degrees of completion throughout the room and crates of paints and spray cans scattered around.

Thor’s in the exact spot Dizzee left him, perched on a tall stool with a paintbrush in his hand. He doesn’t seem to have heard Dizzee coming back, too focused on the careful lines of orange he’s laying down.

Dizzee’s decision to let him paint for a little while longer is instantaneously ruined when he trips over the lump of fur on the floor.

Bast yowls in objection at the rough treatment though it sounds more like the startled squawk of an oboe.

“Jesus fuck,” Thor gasps, dropping his brush. It hits his knee and clatters to the ground.

Dizzee grimaces apologetically as Thor gets off the stool and stretches. There’s a long splatter of orange down the leg of his pants. “Well, at least we’ll never need a security alarm as long as she’s around?” he offers.

In barely a handful of months, Bast has grown from a skinny, dirty kitten to a long-limbed, angular creature. She purrs like a rusty car, still can’t jump without wobbling and is possibly the weirdest animal Dizzee’s ever met. The mismatched eyes and pale triangular face topped with large ears make her look slightly otherworldly, like one day she might just open her mouth and start talking.

(They’d had her for a total of two days before she had slipped out as they were walking out the door. They had both freaked out and barreled down the stairs only to find her sitting on the curb outside. She’d looked at them as if to say, “Well, are you coming?” And then she’d followed them all the way to the studio, where she’d spent the day napping in a sunny window, and followed them back home again.)

Bast had been a good name, they’d decided. The cat didn’t seem to be entirely of this world.

They’re a little family of extraterrestrials, Dizzee thinks. It fits.

They settle on the small worn couch in the corner, Thor shoving papers and mason jars full of markers out of the way so Dizzee can spread out the boxes of Chinese food. While they eat, they exchange containers from time to time.

Bast jumps onto Dizzee’s shoulder to peer down into his takeout box. He offers her a fried noodle and she chews it up noisily.

“If you keep feeding her our food she won’t be able to hide under the couch anymore,” Thor says.

“Don’t listen to him,” Dizzee tells the cat who crawls over the back of the couch to stretch out along it, her head close to his neck. “You’re a gracious goblin queen and you can achieve whatever you put your mind to.”

What she wants to do, apparently, is chew at one of Dizzee’s dreads. Thor chokes on a mouthful of rice. “Child, please,” Dizzee sighs and tugs his hair back to safety. “Those are for aesthetic, not eating.”

Dizzee props his feet onto the couch and Thor draws them onto his own lap. Distractedly he runs his free hand over the top of one foot and up to wrap around Dizzee’s ankle, rubbing his thumb over the inner joint. It’s oddly intimate. Dizzee taps his toes against the inner seam of Thor’s jeans.

His boyfriend arches an eyebrow and points his plastic fork at him. “Don’t start anything you can’t finish, you.”

“Who says I can’t finish,” asks Dizzee mildly. He’s gratified to see Thor’s eyes darken, his hand tightening on Dizzee’s ankle ever so slightly.

Dizzee puts aside the almost empty carton of food and shuffles over to slide into Thor’s lap. He pulls the golden hair out of its ponytail, letting it fall freely, soft around his fingers. Thor’s hands settle warmly on the small of Dizzee’s back, thumbs slipping under his t-shirt. He’s got that look in his eyes that makes Dizzee feel like wings are unfolding from his back, ready to take flight.

Dizzee grinds his hips down, meanly, just to make Thor groan and fall back against the armrest. There’s something intoxicating about knowing that even after years of growing and changing, he can still make Thor tense and pliant with want like this. The way he eagerly gives up control still makes Dizzee’s head spin.

“I need to finish my painting,” he protests feebly when Dizzee puts his mouth the line of his throat.

Dizzee looks over at the canvas. Jamie stares back at them in the explosion of color that he was when he lived. It’s the most recent one in the series, their friends painted in bold, living colors.

There’s grief and love in every brushstroke. A eulogy to people whose photos will never be printed in the newspapers. People made of star stuff, shoved into the darkness by officials who refused to intervene, and then refused the responsibility in the resulting deaths.

Dizzee startles at the touch of fingers to his cheek. Thor’s fingertips wipe under the curve of his lower eyelid and come away wet. When did he start crying? Dizzee looks back down at this man, who wears his heart in his eyes but seems to think Dizzee is the incredible one, and loves so deeply that he feels it overflow and spill out every pore.

“I love you,” Thor says, quietly, because Dizzee never needs to say anything. Dizzee knows Thor got his nickname because of his looks. But how could any other name be more fitting than that of a god’s?

“I love you too,” says Dizzee and he’s smiling with tear tracks on his cheeks. He leans his forehead against Thor’s and closes his eyes. Breathes out shakily.

Of course, that’s when Bast drops off the couch with a graceless _thump_.

Dizzee leans over, still in Thor’s lap, making his boyfriend’s breath hitch, to shoot a skeptical look at where the cat is sprawled on the floor. She moans theatrically. “I thought cats were supposed to land on their feet.”

Thor snorts and cranes his head to see. “Still pretty sure she’s not actually a cat,” he says. “But hey, think of it as practice for when we have kids.”

The easiness with which he says _when_ makes Dizzee hide his face in Thor’s neck to bury a grin against his pulse. It’s strange to feel such heights of happiness alongside moments of deep mourning. If Dizzee was better with words he’d say something about the duality of life, about love and death in the same breath. A Rumi poem he can barely remember goes, _look at the unity of this, spring and winter._

__

__

He’ll settle for lines and colors, and the happiness of the beautiful man in his arms, and their odd but warm little family.

It’s more than enough.

**Author's Note:**

> bast the cat is inspired by my sister's old cat o'malley who was absolutely bonkers but very loving. 
> 
> do come hang out with me on tumblr! I'm luminarai there as well.


End file.
